


Forged in the Fire, Lost to the Flame

by kaylahselman15



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21642196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaylahselman15/pseuds/kaylahselman15
Summary: I recently reread and rewatched The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and I had some questions and concerns.  What of the life the Pevensies left behind?  Why, if they spent the majority of their life in Narnia, was it discarded and brushed off so easily? The people and the things that were left dangling in their absence really gnawed at me, so I did the only thing I knew to do…I wrote about it.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 13





	Forged in the Fire, Lost to the Flame

He knew. When he fell to the oak floors from a life long forgotten, he knew. Spare Oom, The Wardrobe. It wasn’t a dream; they were back. Narnia, their people, Cair Paravel, and she were all a world away. Edmund heard the Professor approaching and addressing them, but his hands went immediately to this pockets. Lucy placed a hand on his shoulder and he jumped. One look at her cherub face was almost as if he was seeing a ghost. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

Peter and Susan turned their attention to their brother. “Oh, Ed…” Susan whispered.

“What were you all doing in the Wardrobe?” Professor Kirke asked. Edmund could barely hear Peter’s reply through the ringing in his ears. If he hadn’t been so nervous, he would’ve never insisted on hunting down that White Stag.

“Edmund,” Peter nudged him. “He’s gone. We can figure out how to get back.” The eldest, a good foot shorter than he was just a few moments ago, scrambled to his feet. “There has to be a way. They need us. She needs you, Ed.”

Edmund’s stomach dropped and his mind went straight to her face. “Peter, stop,” he muttered rushing to stop his brother from busting the back of the wardrobe. “You heard him. It’s no use. It’s over, it’s all over.”

From the other side of the room, Lucy clutched her hand to her mouth and Edmund made sure to avoid her sad gaze as he hastened from the room. “This is all my fault.” The youngest Pevensie’s mind was whirling. She knew that Edmund wanted this day to be perfect. She never should’ve let the familiarity of the Lamp Post distract her.

Susan had followed Edmund, but Peter remained. His steady arm slung across her shoulders and drew her into his side as she began to cry. “No, Lu, it isn’t.”

“Ed… Edmund! Talk to me!” Susan chased her brother down the hall. Each fuzzy memory of this place she thought she dreamt was coming back to her making her sway on her feet, but she pushed through anxious to get to Edmund. 

Each glance at his hands, that were two times bigger a mere five minutes before, was surreal. His gait was clumsy, having long outgrown the gangly limbs he found himself with once again, but he couldn’t stay in that room. The child faces of his brother and sisters, the ghosts of who they no longer were yet became again, made him ill. There was no denying the obvious truth. There was no use. Iris- the girl who stumbled into Narnia from their birth land in his fifth year as the Just King, the girl he protected and grew to love, the girl he planned to propose to that very night was an entire world and lifetime away. Edmund was devastated.

He collapsed onto the bed clutching a pillow tightly over his head. The slight dip of the mattress and the subtle pressure of his sister’s hand on his shoulder meant that she had found him. “I’m so sorry, Edmund.”

Although he did crave a moment alone, he was glad Susan had followed him. If Lucy or Peter were at his bedside, they would fill his head with false hope of finding some way back home. He didn’t need valiant bravery and unwavering blind faith in happy endings. What he needed was Susan and her gentle truth. She would let him grieve with dignity- acknowledging the immensity of what he had lost.

“What will become of her?” he muttered, not able to even speak her name.

“Narnia will care for her. Mr. Tumnus, the Beavers….Aslan. She’ll be named Queen no doubt. Our people love Iris, because you did.”

“Aslan… He brought her to us. How could He let this happen, Su?” Susan sighed, tugging at a loose thread in the duvet and choking back the sudden onset of her own homesickness.

“He must know what He’s doing.” Edmund rolled to his side to look out the window at the vast dreariness that was this world. He longed for his kingdom and the beauty that lay beyond Cair Paravel’s walls, just outside his office window. But in truth, he would give anything for Iris to be here with him now. He never should’ve left her sleeping in her chambers. Now, a world and a lifetime separating them, he worried about her just as much as he missed her.

Iris Bradford, formerly of Brighton, England and currently ruling over a land she stumbled into at the mere age of twelve in the absence of her Kings and Queens. King Peter, Queen Susan, and Queen Lucy became her family. They welcomed her into their kingdom, keeping her safe and showing her the beauty Narnia had to share. King Edmund always kept a careful eye out for any sign that she was homesick as she adjusted to life away from England was the man she grew to love. Losing them made breathing even breathing painful and leading an entire world despite her grief nearly impossible.

General Orieus, King Peter’s right hand man, took on as much of the load as he could after the disappearance to keep Iris from falling apart, but the Narnians looked to her, a daughter of Eve and the beloved of their Just King, to become their ruler. Months after the search parties halted their efforts, Iris still roamed the woods where the four siblings were last spotted, desperate for any sign of them.

Mrs. Beaver begged her not to wander beyond the grounds alone, but Iris couldn’t justify giving up on the very Kings and Queens that would never give up the search for her if she were the one to be missing. She also couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing them again, and the woods made her feel somehow closer to them. She had to keep hoping they would return, so she did. 

Ninety four days without Edmund holding her had her feeling heavy and she found herself bound to her bed. The beautiful crooked smile she loved so much haunted her and she shut her eyes tightly to fight off the ache of longing that followed. When she couldn’t take it any longer, Iris snuck through the palace halls to the stables. Saffron, the keeper of the horses, gave her a knowing look as she reached for her saddle. 

“Your Majesty,” he greeted, bowing slightly. Iris cringed, her mind going instantly to the coronation only two weeks away that would officially make her Queen, a title that she couldn’t bear accepting without Edmund at her side.

She cleared her throat before forcing a small smile on her face. “I’ll only be a few hours today, Saff, I swear.”

Saffron took the saddle from her trembling hands and settled it on Edmund’s horse. “Take as long as you need. Right, Phillip?”

The horse nudged her in response and she lifted her hand to his mane. “Just as long as I get to go as slow as I need. To the woods, again?”

Iris averted her eyes knowing how close Phillip and Edmund were and how devastated he was to return to Cair Paravel that dreadful day without him. “If that’s okay? I don’t mind walking some of the way.”

“Absolutely not! If I let you do that, I’d never hear the end of it. King Edmund would…” he trailed off, noticing the gasp that Iris gave at the mention of that name. “Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Iris took a moment to regain her composure, smoothing her hands against the silk of her dress before hoisting herself onto the saddle. “Don’t fret, dear Phillip. Just get me out of here.” Iris loved to ride through her kingdom. Horseback riding was the first thing Edmund taught her to do, and once she got the hang of it, there was no stopping her.

Phillip led her through the woods, and with his permission, she ventured further than she had dared in previous excursions. Her dark hair had tangled from their ride and she pulled her cloak up to cover her head. They came upon a patch of trees with one that was shorter and appeared to be made of metal. She dismounted and went up to put her hand to the trunk. Her eyes trailed up to the peculiar fire at the top.

“This isn’t a tree…” she whispered. Her mind was racing with the stories that Lucy had told her of how they came to Narnia all those years ago.

She rushed around to face Phillip, her eyes blazing with the new discovery. “This is a lamppost. This is THE lamppost from Spare Oom, don’t you remember?” She circled the lamppost and ran through the woods that surrounded it. “We have to be close! This is it!”

She ran until she was breathless, finding no further sign of the Kings and Queens she so desperately wanted to find. Phillip finally caught up to her and she fell to her knees. “Queen Iris, please!” he wheezed out.

Her breath hitched and her hands clutched at the ground beneath her, but her fingers circled around something firmer than the soil. She lifted it up to find that it was a gold band, polished perfectly. Engraved in careful script on the inside of the ring was, “With all my heart- Edmund”.

There, in the woods, with Phillip beside her and all the hope she was holding onto vanishing, she broke down. Her friends, her family, the love of her life were truly gone, and she would do anything to get them back.


End file.
